Burning Bright and Beautiful
by cindella204
Summary: Five pieces of Derek's history where anything resembling pack, family, or connection burns to ashes, and one time when he finally allows himself to hope for the first time in seven years.
1. flame

**A/N: First Teen Wolf fic, yay! Enjoy :D**

**IN THIS CHAPTER: Character death and grief**

**...**

**So hum hallelujah**

**Just off the key of reason**

**I thought I loved you**

**It was just how you looked in the light**

**A teenage vow in a parking lot**

**'Til tonight do us part**

**I sing the blues**

**And you swallow them too**

- Hum Hallelujah / Fall Out Boy

**...**

**FLAME**

Derek doesn't even remember that he has the meeting until ten o'clock the night before when he hears his sister tell his parents that they'll be home late from school. His relationship with Kate has been heating up, and with it everything else is starting to fade to the background. It's a wonder that he made it through AP's and state tests, but now it's June and school's almost over and he can't wait until the summer when it will be _a lot_ easier for him to spend time with Kate without getting caught.

She may or may not be four years older than him, and he has a feeling that his parents wouldn't approve. And she's an _Argent_. Apparently they have history with that family that goes back hundreds of years. Yes, her dad is a bigoted asshole who has sworn to eradicate their kind, but she's sure as hell not, and from his very limited experience with her brother it seems like he's not either.

The issue is that it's their six month anniversary, and they've decided that Kate will pick him up from school for a _surprise_. Probably something ending with hot, passionate sex, because almost everything they do ends with hot, passionate sex. Laura isn't a big fan of Kate, but she reluctantly agrees to cover for him.

But, no. He has to go to the goddamn information meeting for athletes planning to play sports in the fall. Absolutely mandatory or you can't tryout. They even start it an hour after school ends so that all the eighth graders planning to try out for the freshman teams can get to the school.

He sends Kate an overly-apologetic text message, and can't sleep that night because he never gets a response from her. The next day he sneaks off to the bathroom during lunch to call her, and she answers on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Kate, it's Derek."

"Oh, hey, sweetie. Aren't you at school?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to check in with you and see if you got my message. And apologize a thousand more times."

"You didn't get a reply from me? I could've sworn…freaking shitty phone. Anyway, it's totally fine. Can I pick you up when you get finished?"

"Of course, yes, that would be great. Oh my God, I would seriously just not play in the fall, but my parents would absolutely _lose it_, and then—"

"Der, it's fine, I promise. Just text me fifteen minutes before it ends and I'll be there when you're finished, and then we can go. It shouldn't make too much of a difference, and you definitely need to play in the fall. The things that varsity workouts do to your body is worth having to start a date a little late, hun. I can't have you getting soft on me now, can I?"

Derek just shakes his head before remembering that he's on the phone and _she can't see it_. "So you're absolutely sure that it's okay and one hundred percent aware that you're the most important thing in my life and I plan on it staying that way?"

"One hundred percent on both counts."

"Okay. I should get back to school because I'll get detention if I'm late to another class and God knows that that is the last thing we need. See you after the meeting?"

"Yep, see you then! Love you."

"Love you too." Derek hangs up the phone.

Now just to get through the rest of this stupid school day.

**…**

_4:00_.

Derek shoves his phone back into his pocket and Laura turns toward him to shoot him a glare. This is probably the fifth time he's checked the time in less than five minutes. She doesn't even need to be here because she's a senior and she'll be gone next year, but they need to leave the school at the same time for the cover story to work, therefore she's with him, an AP Calculus textbook on her lap.

He _so_ owes her for this and he knows it.

He's sitting there, more of his attention on resisting the urge to check his phone again than what's going on in the meeting, when pain rips through him like he's never experienced in his life. Everything hurts, and he doubles over and tries (and probably fails) to not look like he's dying. Several people, including Laura, give him concerned looks, but then she's down too, and this must be some crazy werewolf shit. Fantastic. It lasts for ten excruciating minutes that feel like hours before it subsides to a throbbing headache. Laura puts away her homework and glares at him.

"What?" he snaps, and she rolls her eyes before sending a message to their mother.

**_Both Derek and I just feel like we suddenly got hit by an eighteen wheeler or something: excruciating pain and then these headaches. Is something going on?_**

She doesn't get a response, which makes them both think something's going on. He's a little worried, but he has to sit through this stupid meeting, and then Kate…

His phone starts vibrating in his pocket and he pulls it out to see a call from a number he doesn't recognize. He hits the ignore button and looks at the time before shoving it back in his pocket.

_4:27_.

His phone vibrates again. Same number. He still ignores it. And then it rings again.

Fed up, he whispers a harsh, "Be right back," to Laura and goes out in the hall, where he takes the call.

"_Yes?_"

A clinical voice he doesn't recognize asks, "Have I reached Derek Hale?"

Derek heaves a sigh. "_Yes_. This is my _cell phone_. Who is this?"

"Of course, just making sure. This is Dr. Coyer from Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital…"

He doesn't even feel himself slide to the floor.

**…**

The meeting ends just after five and Laura is _furious_ when she finds Derek sitting on the floor in the hallway, staring into space.

"Derek, what the _fuck_! I sit through this _stupid_ information meeting so that I can cover your _stupid_ ass so you can meet with your _stupid_ girlfriend and you _ditch_ me?"

"Kate's not stupid," he says without thinking. Thinking isn't exactly something he's capable of right now.

"That's all you have to say to me right now? _Really_, Derek?"

He doesn't respond, just stares at the same locker he's been staring at for thirty minutes, and Laura keeps talking.

"You know what, _fuck_ you. I've succeeded in wasting almost three hours here with you when my unit project for calc is due _tomorrow_ and my head is still pounding so hard that even looking at math makes me want to die. Hopefully you can figure something out with Kate, because I'm not doing shit for you."

She's about to make a dramatic exit when Derek mutters, "Oh my God, that's what that was. It must be some kind of werewolf family thing."

Laura stops in her tracks. "You know what happened? Did you get in touch with mom or something?"

He still doesn't make eye contact with her, but replies with, "No, it's just when you said that it clicked. Oh my God." He pulls his knees toward him and lays his head on top.

"Okay, Derek, what the hell is wrong with you? What's going on?"

"That feeling in the meeting? It's some kind of connection based on being a family pack, because it happened at the same time that our entire family burned."

And then he gets up and he sprints off because he knows he's about to break, and a random hallway in Beacon Hills High School is _not _where he wants that to happen.

**…**

Unfortunately Child Protective Services shows up before he can escape. Laura's nineteen, so they can temporarily transfer custody of him to her, but it still requires lots of discussions and paperwork. He calls Kate, but she doesn't answer, so he leaves her a message explaining what's going on. She's probably mad at him because their plans are completely _fucked_ at this point, but he didn't have a choice with CPS and even if he did…his entire family just died…violently. The Hale's are a decently sized family (he has two other sisters: Cora and Anna), but they had extended family in town as well. And for once _everyone_ was home except for Derek and Laura. Laura's still mad at him, now for not telling her _immediately_, and all he wants is Kate. He keeps sending her text messages, knowing that he probably seems desperate as hell, but he gets no response from her. Maybe something came up with her family too?

Laura and the social worker finally come out of the DSS office. Laura's eyes are puffy and red and she has a manila folder in one hand. The social worker walks over to Derek, and he slips his phone into his pocket and tries to look like he's not completely falling apart.

"Your sister said that you'll be eighteen in a few months?"

He nods.

"Okay, then we can probably just give her informal custody. She will have to work with the court to gain access to her portion of the Hale estate, but until then we'll put you in a temporary apartment furnished by the Department of Social Services. We've already contacted the school, and we'd like to see you again tomorrow to go over some legal stuff. Is that okay?"

Derek nods again and they leave, Laura grabbing his hand on the way. He gives her a look, and she tries to sound snarky as she says, "All we have is each other, get over it," but her voice cracks at the end.

He doesn't trust himself to respond.

**...**

**A/N: Yes I know this is a little AU because apparently the fire happened at seven something. I wasn't aware of that when I first started writing this, and then I loved the idea I had too much to change it. I hope it's not too bothersome.**

**Feedback's appreciated if you liked it ;) Or even if you didn't.**


	2. shadow

**IN THIS CHAPTER: Flashbacks/discussion of underage dubious consent**

**...**

**Climbing out the back door**

**Didn't leave a mark**

**No one know's it's you**

**Miss Jackson**

.

**Found another victim**

**But no one's gonna find **

**Miss Jackson, Jackson**

**Jackson **

- Miss Jackson / Panic! At The Disco

**...**

**SHADOW**

Five days later they're finally allowed to visit the remains of the house as long as they swear not to move or destroy evidence. The case has been demoted from a potential homicide to "just arson", so the cops are a lot less strict about the crime scene regulations. From the things Derek has overheard it sounds like it might not even be considered an arson in the end. Apparently there's evidence of an electrical failure.

He doesn't know what to think.

Derek and Laura split up when they enter the house because neither of them can bear to watch the other try (and probably fail) not to have a breakdown as they walk through the spaces where their family took their last breaths. All of the deaths but two were due to smoke inhalation, not actual fire, and although the entire house has been severely scorched, only a few rooms in the back were completely reduced to ash. The skeleton of the rest of the house remains, and Derek is running his hand across the top of his mother's dresser when he hears his sister mutter under her breath, "You've _got_ to be fucking kidding me, Derek."

He has no clue what he did this time, but he finds her in his bedroom searching through something on the floor.

"What?" he asks, and she turns around to face him.

"When was the last time you had Kate here?" When she says her name there's a venom that he rarely hears in Laura's voice, and he tries not to think about how much it hurts for his sister to hate his girlfriend, and his girlfriend to not really give a crap about any of his family.

They have bigger problems right now.

"Two and a half weeks ago when you caught us here. After that we decided that it was probably stupid to get together in a house full of werewolves with super senses."

"Then what the hell is this?"

She shoves whatever she was searching through into his arms. It's a backpack that he doesn't use very often. The zipper's melted shut from exposure to the heat, but she's ripped the fabric open. Derek dumps the it out on the remains of his bed and finds a full set of Kate's clothes and the necklace with her family crest on it.

A necklace that she was definitely wearing on their date three days ago. He has a picture of it.

And she hasn't been here in two and a half weeks.

"Her stuff," he replies absently. He's trying to figure out how the hell this got here without Laura figuring out that he doesn't know.

"Yeah 'her stuff'. She's keeping _clothes_ here and you're trying to tell me that she hasn't been here again? Especially when that stupid Argent necklace is there, and she's been wearing that every time I've ever seen her. _And_ the scent on the clothes couldn't be more than a week old!"

Oh God. He can't do this right now. Can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. He hasn't been able to get in touch with Kate since the fire, and he has no clue what that means, and the last thing he wants to do is have an extended discussion with his sister about her.

"Laura, I have no clue how this got here, but I swear on whatever you want me to that Kate hasn't been here since then."

"Derek, it's not just the bag. When I walked in I smelled our family…and Kate. Same strength as everyone else's: about a week to a week and a half old. She's been here in the past ten days."

"And maybe you just scented in wrong, Laura? Because she hasn't."

Laura's eyes flick to red as she yells, "Scented it wrong! Have you forgotten that _I am the Alpha_! I didn't scent it wrong. If you want to pretend that you guys weren't coming here to fuck I'd suggest that you make up a story about having to stop by here because you 'forgot something' or some other shit, because she was _here_, Derek, and I know that." As she talks he gets a glimpse of her canines.

"First of all, can you be a little less dramatic? I'm not impressed by your half shift, Laura, so put the fangs away and stop with the eyes. And yes, that would be great, except for the fact that she _hasn't_. Listen to my heartbeat, Laura. _I have not brought Kate to our house since the time you caught us in the bedroom two and a half weeks ago_."

"Or maybe there's no changes in your heart rate or scent when you lie because you've gotten so good at it. You know, since that's all you do these days."

"Give me the keys."

Laura's eyes flash again and Derek really wants to hit something. "Why the hell would I give you the keys? Do you really think—"

Derek's control slips for just a second and he can feel his eyes shift to the blue that has unnerved Laura ever since they changed. "I'm going to Kate's. Give me the keys."

**…**

When he gets to Kate's apartment he finds himself panicking.

_Badly_.

His instincts are usually pretty spot on, and he has a bad feeling about this. Seriously bad. Like, _last-time-he-felt-this-bad-Paige-died_ bad.

But he needs _answers_, so he gets out of the car, his bag in hand, and hits the buzzer for Kate's apartment. It flashes green and the main door unlocks, and then it's up the three flights of stairs to her door.

He takes a deep breath and knocks. Kate answers in a leather jacket and knee-high boots with her hair tied up in a bun. It reminds him a little of when they met, and it's hot, but he has bigger things on his mind.

"Hey, Derek." She opens the door and then turns away, walking out of sight. He's confused, but he shuts the door and follows after her. She tries to scent check and finds…nothing. Which is what apathy smells like.

"Have you been getting my texts and calls?"

She's reading something on her kitchen counter but she nods absently. "Yep."

He waits for an expanded response, but he doesn't get one.

_Okay then_.

"Laura found this in our house earlier and I know you were wearing that necklace on our date three days before the fire, which you know about because you said you're getting my calls. So what's up?"

His heart rate spikes in anticipation of her response and he's glad that he's the werewolf in the room. The way she can make his nerves spike is _pathetic_.

She still doesn't bother to make eye contact, but after a pause she says, "I put it there the day before the fire."

His heart rate increases _again_ and he realizing that he's getting close to a shift. He takes a breath and gets back to a safe range before saying, "_What_! You were _in my bedroom_ the day before the fire? What the hell, Kate? When were you even there? We have _family_ in town, and I know—"

She pins him with a look that makes him stop talking instantly. "I'm an Argent."

Her blasé attitude and unwillingness to give him a straight answer is starting to piss him off and he feels himself grinding his teeth. Fangs are going to make an appearance soon if he's not careful.

"So you would know how to sneak in. Fine. But that doesn't tell me _why the hell you snuck into my house and planted your stuff there_."

"You're a Hale. Wolf family. So…connect the dots, Derek."

He knows that his eyes go blue and he doesn't even have it in him to care anymore. "That would be a lot easier if I even knew what the fucking dots were! So help me God, Kate, if you don't give me a fucking _straight answer_…" He trails off, because even though he's beyond angry with her he also _loves _her, and he can't find it in him to threaten her.

Especially since he essentially killed his first love.

Kate sighs like _he's_ the one causing the problem here. "I left my stuff there in hopes that it'd be enough to tip you off, but obviously not, since you're here."

"About what? What the _fuck_ is it, Kate?"

"About the fact that I used you to get the access I needed to take down your family! Okay, Derek? There it is. Your mom was probably the most powerful shapeshifter in California, and I'm a _hunter_. We _kill_ your kind. Your mom, and preferably your whole family needed to be taken care of and I realized that I could get to them through you. Any more questions?" She says it like _he's_ the one causing the problem here by making her say it. Like she can't comprehend how his stupid self couldn't come to that conclusion on his own so he wasn't wasting her time.

Derek's.

World.

_Stops_.

"Now leave, because I've got places to go and people to see."

**—~—**

It's a miracle that he doesn't kill anyone on the way home. Seriously. He shouldn't be driving, and he knows it, but what the hell is he supposed to do?

_Your mom, and preferably your whole family needed to be taken care of and I realized that I could get to them through you. Any more questions?"_

**_—~—_**

_Derek meets Kate at a Halloween party. Apparently it started as a college thing, but from the looks of it half the varsity athletes at Beacon Hills High got invited. She's dressed in a leather jacket, low-cut red top, and a leather mini-skirt with knee high boots. The hilt of something is poking out of her jacket (back sheath?!) and she has a thigh holster on one leg. Apparently she's a vampire hunter, like Buffy._

_Hot _damn_._

_He introduces Laura to a kid on the lacrosse team that she's been crushing on since school started and then ditches her. When he finds Kate she's in the kitchen with a bottle of Jack in one hand and a classic red SOLO cup in the other. When she hears him enter she turns and offers him the bottle._

_"Want some?"_

_Her _voice_._

_"Yeah." He takes it from her and grabs a (probably nasty) cup before pouring himself a double. He doesn't usually drink—there's really no point when you don't even get drunk—but if she handed him a vial of wolfsbane he probably would have drunk it._

_In his head he tells Laura telling him that he's fucking _pathetic_, but after seeing her pining over lacrosse guy for two months he's not buying that._

_"Hale, right?" she asks, swishing the whiskey in her cup._

_He nods absently. "Yeah, Derek."_

_When Laura walks in two hours later, rejected by lacrosse guy and ready to leave, he's had her pressed against the fridge kissing for at least half an hour._

**—~—**

When he gets back to the DSS apartment Laura's in the kitchen washing dishes. She makes a scathing comment, but it sounds like she's underwater and the only words he catches are "Kate" and "fucking". He throws the keys at the back of her head knowing she'll catch them (wolf reflexes) and heads upstairs without any other acknowledgement.

Once he's locked in his room and buried under the covers the guilt hits him so hard that he can't breathe.

His entire family is dead and it's totally his fault and him and Kate are done and how can he even be upset about that when his entire family is dead and it's _his fault_? And Laura is pissed at him and there's no way for him to explain and he's always had a tendency to fuck things up (_Paige_) but this brings it to a whole new level.

He doesn't cry. When you live in a family full of werewolves you learn not to because everyone can hear it no matter how quiet you are, and if not they can smell the salt in your tears.

Granted all his family is _dead_ (and it's his fault), but there's still Laura.

So he sits with his head under a musty covered duvet and let's it suffocate him.

_His family's dead. And it's his fault._

**—~—**

_The first time Kate and Derek have sex is about three and a half weeks after they meet._

_It's also when he finds out she's an Argent and gets her actual age._

_Twenty-one. She's a senior in college._

_After ten straight minutes of kissing and grinding and groping she specifically asks for consent. He's sixteen, and she wants her bases covered in case he freaks out afterward. He's already wrecked and ready and chokes out a, "Yes, yes, oh God, yes, Igiveyoufullconsentjustfuckme."_

_She does._

_In the eyes of the law his consent doesn't actually count because he's underage, but she's not worried about it. _

**—~—**

He goes about thirty-five hours without leaving his room (except for the bathroom) or interacting with another human being. He has a twelve pack of Gatorade in there and it's enough. In April a group of kids at his school did a thing called "30 Hour Famine" where they didn't eat for thirty hours to raise money for world hunger, and although it isn't pleasant, if they can do it he definitely can.

Especially since he literally doesn't get out of bed except to go to the bathroom, which he only does when Laura's working. They have _way_ too much money coming from insurance, estate, and other, but it has to get get processed, which will take a month or two. Until then Laura is working her ass off for them to live in Section Eight housing and eat ramen noodles.

Well, when he was eating, anyway.

For now he stays in bed with his Gatorade, mind carefully blank.

**—~—**

_Derek and Kate fuck around for a month and a half before they become official. It's not like him, having sex with her something six or seven times as friends with benefits, but it's not as horrific as he would have thought. Sure, he misses the emotional depth of an actual relationship, but he's honestly not even sure that he's ready for that and there's something not-so-horrible about having an output for a rapidly increasing sex drive (teenager+male+werewolf=bad news) without having to deal with…feelings._

_But eventually he starts to miss the feelings. He wants to go on awkward dates with her, and try see if they can hang out in public places without getting caught, and to stay at her apartment way too late watching movies just for an excuse to make out._

_So they have a conversation about it and she agrees and suddenly it's there. They go on dates. Cuddle at her apartment. Say their goodbyes in her backseat a mile from his house because Talia Hale's scent and hearing range is freaking _ridiculous_._

_And it's good._

**—~—**

It is sixty three hours and thirty two minutes after he gets home from Kate's that he falls asleep for the first time.

Two and a half days.

He tries before then, but he can't. All the feelings he manages to numb during the day come back out a night.

The survivor's guilt. The grief. The heartbreak. The self _hatred_.

It sucks that he can't get drunk. Seriously. He would gladly face the pain of a hangover for the rest of his _life_ it it meant just one day of waking up feeling something other than guilt, grief, and misery.

But, no. Werewolves can't get drunk on typical alcohol. A depressant strong enough to have any effect on him would be a controlled substance and require a diagnosis for an anxiety disorder. And then there'd be med checks, and psychotherapy, and…no.

Eventually his body starts demanding food and (restless, useless) sleep, and he builds a routine that allows him to eat three meals a day and still avoid Laura. They got an official report from the legal people: they aren't going to get access to the inheritance/insurance/other until the end of August at the earliest. So Laura's gone a lot, making it pretty easy for him. He makes it a whole four days before she comes home early and he's too far in his own head to notice. They both freeze at the sight of each other for a few seconds before Derek ditches the food he was about to put into the microwave and sprints back to his bedroom.

Funny how they're the last two left and it's like _this_.

**—~—**

_The first time he doesn't feel like it and it happens anyway is right after Winter Break, almost a week before his birthday. Kate and Derek spent New Years' together. It was great. But then it was back to school, and back to practice. More specifically, conditioning for spring sports starts on the first day back. Every year Derek and Laura talk about how they're going to work out over the break and push each other so that they're actually ready for conditioning._

_And every year they eat way too much food, do absolutely nothing, and almost die on the first day: werewolves or not. Their coaches are used to them performing at ridiculous, bordering-on-impossible levels, so they aren't allowed to be average._

_This year isn't any different. Derek knows it could be worse because he saw Laura and the rest of the soccer girls pass at least four times running laps before they started a set of suicides. Regardless, baseball conditioning's not much better. All they're doing this early is running and weights._

_Afterward Laura goes home and takes a nap, but Derek stupidly made plans with Kate before realizing that was the _first day of conditioning_. So they hang out her apartment, and she wants it to end with sex (because everything they do ends with sex) and he's drop dead _exhausted_ and the idea of anything remotely physical, even sex, is totally unappealing._

_He's _that_ tired. Especially since Kate looks particularly hot that day._

_She doesn't really ask, she hasn't since the first time, and he doesn't really say no either. She starts biting into his neck, leaving bruises that never last for more than five minutes, and he breathes into her ear that he's _exhausted_ and can barely keep his head up, never mind have sex with her. He doesn't add "so _stop_," but it's implied. She just drags her lips up his neck and mutters that she'll have to take the lead then, as if she doesn't try to every time they get together._

_Usually Derek finds the whole '_femme domme_' thing hot, but now it's just frustrating, and he let's that show. Generally he is super careful about staying one hundred percent human. The first few times he'd come down to see Kate smirking at his blue eyes and clawed fingers tearing through the sheets, but his control is better than that now._

_Except when he doesn't want it to be. So he lets his eyes flash and his teeth sharpen. Tears off her shirt with claws and marks her her neck and shoulders with fangs._

_He's pretty sure she likes it more that way._

**—~—**

On 24 June 2006 at 10:37 Derek Hale _breaks_.

The twenty fourth was his parents anniversary. In a family pack the Alpha's anniversary is essentially a pack bonding day. His mom was already an Alpha when she met his father, but his father was a human. They fell in love, so eventually she had to tell him, and he wanted the bite and they married and he took her name since she was the Alpha, and they had four kids and lived happily ever after.

Until Derek got them all killed, but, you know, whatever.

When Derek wakes up that morning Laura's already at work. It's Tuesday, so she has to be at the café by six thirty, and there's no way in hell he's getting up before nine, especially when he usually isn't falling asleep until the early hours of the morning. When Laura got in the shower this morning he hadn't gone to sleep yet.

But then he wakes up, and the first though to enter his head is that it's the _anniversary_, and he's out of bed, tripping over his sheets on his way to the shower.

The water's _way _too hot, and he's still in the shorts he slept in last night, and none of it matters because's today's the anniversary and his family is dead and it's his fault.

He punches the wall of the shower, wincing when the ceramic shatters like glass under werewolf strength, cries until he has no tears left, and then sits under the shower with the water running cold, knowing that their water bill's going to reflect almost three hours with the shower running.

And he doesn't give a flying _fuck_.

**—~—**

_He doesn't know exactly when in he starts feeling like he's walking on eggshells with her _all the time._ It started _so _good, but at some point it got to the point where spending time with her stressed him out, and he never felt good enough around her._

_She never said that. He just felt that way._

_Her birthday was in March, on a Saturday, so he made elaborate plans and they spent the entire day together. Since spring sports started they hadn't had time to do things like that anymore, and he missed it more than anything. The baseball team had some kind of team-bonding thing planned, and their captain was pissed that he was skipping, but Kate was so incredibly worth it that he barely heard the lecture he got about how those events were how they got to truly became a team, and that they were just as important as practice, especially in the beginning of the season._

_He feels like she tolerated it at best._

_His mom notices that he's on edge all the time now. He tells her that he's just too busy and getting stressed out, which is true. It's the spring of his junior year, so he's doing college visits, prepping for AP exams, playing baseball, doing projects, and getting really freaking ready for the summer to come._

_Also, he's in a suddenly tedious relationship that he can't tell anyone about with a woman who only seems half-interested in him at best, and yet won't leave._

_Stressed doesn't even _begin_ to cover it._

**—~—**

The next morning he wakes up to Laura pounding on his door.

"_Derek!_ Open your goddamn door!"

The problem with being a werewolf is that you can't really pretend that you didn't hear. Supernatural hearing and all that jazz.

He's sure as hell going to try, though.

"Derek! You're a fucking _werewolf_, and so am I, meaning that I know you can hear me, and even if I didn't, I can _hear_ your heartbeat to know that you're awake. Open. The door. Now!"

She eventually gets tired of his shit and just punches through the lock.

"Do you want to explain what happened to the shower?"

He just looks at her.

"The shower, Derek. Where the ceramic has obviously been hit and is now falling out in chunks every time you look at it wrong?"

His expression remains blank, and Laura is very quickly losing any resemblance of patience.

"I don't know what you're so upset about anyway, since you've done absolutely _nothing_ in the past two weeks, but regardless, destroying our stuff? _Not_ _okay_. I mean, my family is just as dead as yours is, and yet I am working my ass off to keep us in this shitty apartment while you sit here on your _ass_ doing…whatever you do all day. The least you could do is _not_ destroy our shit." Her eyes start to glow by the time she finishes.

"Sorry."

"Are you, Derek?" she snarls, letting her teeth elongate just enough. "Because I don't think you really understand the situation here. We aren't going to get estate, insurance, et cetera until the end of August at the very_ earliest_. In the meantime, it's you and me, and we _have no money_. With the flood of graduates trying to get retail jobs before college there's _nothing_ out there, so we will continue to _have no money_, and it would be great if you could refrain from fucking things up more than they already are. I know that's hard for you, but could you _try_, please? Don't forget that I rank above you, so as much as it's my responsibility to provide it's _your_ responsibility to obey."

Ha, if only she knew how much he fucked this one up.

He gives her a hard stare before letting his eyes shift and baring his neck to her. It's a classic display of submission, but Laura can _feel_ the sarcasm rolling off of him.

And then she's vaulting across the room to the bed and dropping on top of him, automatically bracing an arm against his throat. Now she's actually shifted, and Derek feels claws digging into her shoulder.

"_Fuck_ you, Derek. I am your Alpha and you damn well are going to give me the respect that comes with that, _brother_."

Derek raises an eyebrow before wrenching his knee up underneath her. It sets off her balance enough for him to kick her off the bed. She manages to land in a semi-crouch and be back on her feet in less than a second, but by then Derek's up and ready to catch the punch that she throws at him. She's overextended so she shoves her out to the ground, but then so is he and she takes him down with her.

Duh. That was stupid.

There are claws waiting for him when he lands, and then there's blood rushing from his forehead for a few moments before the skin knits itself back together.

Now he's _pissed_ and Derek elbows her in the stomach, _hard_, to stun her, before standing, stepping on her ankle to keep her down. He picks her up by her throat and pins her to the wall with her feet dangling three or four inches from the ground.

When it becomes clear that he's waiting for something she gives him a death glare before baring her throat. He leans in and whispers into her ear, "You may have better technique than I do, and yeah, _you're the Alpha_, but at the end of the day I am stronger and faster than you, and don't you forget it." With that he lets go of her, and she lands on her twisted ankle, swearing.

He does go out and get job applications after that, though.

**...**

**A/N: Ugh this chapter was dark and hard to write. Let me know how you felt about it?**

**Playlist: user/cindella204/playlist/4mbpgjcfQ40NwwXDkOY7uh **

**I know Laura's kind of a jerk so far, but understand where she's coming from. Her family is all dead. She's now the Alpha of a pack of two. Her brother, who ideally would be ride this out with her, has basically forced himself into solitary confinement. She's working her ass off to keep them in a crappy section eight apartment even though there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Hale estate that they just can't get access to yet. The situation ****_sucks_****.**


End file.
